Interview for the New TEFL Forums

I’ve sent the following email to each of the administrators for these sites in hopes they will explain their philosophy and policies for each of their sites.  I’ll be publishing their responses on May 1, 2008. 

Gentlemen,

I’m inviting each of you, the administrators of: 

TEFLGuardian (http://teflguardian.com)

TEFL School Reviews (http://www.teflschoolreviews.com)

TEFL EFL Watch (http://thaieflwatch.rahost.org) 

to comment on the following questions.  Please respond by email.   I’ll be publishing the responses on May 1, 2008 on my blog (www.truthintefl.wordpress.com).  I’ll be happy to post a link to this interview on each of your sites.  I’ll also post a link on AjarnForum.com and other TEFL sites as well.   

1.  With three competing sites, what do you think makes your site the best site for teachers to exchange information about schools? 

2.  What is your personal motivation for starting your site?  Please give us your “philosophy” concerning your motivations. 

3.  What does each of you think is the biggest problem a school reporting site might have? 

4.  As each of you know, trolls are a major problem.  What moderation policies do you have to limit the effectiveness of trolls? 

5. The former admin of the defunct TEFLWatch made the following statement in his Hot Seat interview on Ajarn.com  (http://ajarn.com/Hot%20seat/hotseatgreg.htm):

“Anyways, I think any other site would see scant long term success without having an admin on the take.” 

How would each of you respond to that comment?  What are your long term success plans? 

6.  What is the biggest problem facing teachers in Thailand today? 

7.  There have been several comments about advertising on teachers websites.  What are your views about advertising on your site?

8.  In another quote from the Hot Seat interview on Ajarn.com , the former admin of TEFLWatch, he said the following:

“I think the schools that have been actively trying to get information off of TEFLWatch will consider this a victory, but for the majority of schools, they will not care one iota either way. And why should they?” 

What are you going to do to get the school administrators interested commenting on your site?  What methods are you going to use to help them understand that it’s beneficial to show that it helps their school if the teachers are happy? 

9.  In the past, I’ve been a member of several forums where teachers complained about a particular incident or school for literally years.  What are each of you going to do to limit this kind of poster? 

10.  What do each of you think that the future holds for the teachers in Thailand and how do you think your site will help teachers in this uncertain future?  

Gentlemen, 

Thanks for your time and I look forward to posting your responses! 

Topper